Dutch-English participants named words and nonwords with a between-language phonologically inconsistent rime, e.g., GREED and PREED, and control words with a language-typical rime, e.g., GROAN, in a monolingual stimulus list or in a mixed list containing Dutch words. Inconsistent items had longer latencies and more errors than typical items in the…

This paper reports on an experiment which examined the knowledge of verb placement by Japanese learners of English (JLEs). The results of two grammaticality judgement tasks indicated that JLEs acquire the unavailability of an NP-shift operation relatively early, but their judgements of sentences involving V-raising (i.e., illicit *SV-Adv-O word…

Change of first language (L1) status from the most stable language to a less accessible language over the life-span of a bilingual individual is termed "language attrition". Such a shift in ease of L1 access has been reported to affect the lexicon (Pelc, 2001) more than other aspects of language. However, whether L1 attrition is affected by…

The problem: Many previous studies have pointed out that EFL learners tend to face communication breakdowns with native speakers because their traditional classroom and textbooks are not able to provide learners with sufficient pragmatically appropriate input (Bardovi-Harlig, 1996; Rose, 1994, 1997). On the contrary, they are exposed to rich input…

Cognitive load theory has been utilized by second language acquisition (SLA) researchers to account for differences in learner performance with regards to different learning tasks. Certain instructional designs were shown to have an impact on cognitive load and working memory, and this impact was found to be accentuated in a multimedia environment…

In the current study, we present the findings of an experiment with 108 participants of Spanish as a second language in which we compared the effects of dictogloss (DG) and processing instruction (PI) and compared both sets of effects to a control group. Our findings do not support the results of a recent study, Qin (2008). In that study, DG and…

The lack of consistency in how bilingual language dominance is assessed currently impedes cross-experiment comparisons (Grosjean, 1998). We present a paper-and-pencil dominance scale that can be used to quantify the language dominancy of bilingual participants. The scale targets three main criteria important in gauging dominance (Grosjean, 1998;…

This study investigates ultimate attainment at the syntax-discourse interface in adult second-language (L2) acquisition. In total, 91 L1 (first-language) English, L1 Dutch and L1 Russian advanced-to-near-native speakers of German and 63 native controls are tested on an acceptability judgement task and an on-line self-paced reading task. These…

The present study investigates the differential effects of explicit and implicit feedback on L2 learners at different proficiency levels as measured by L2 development and learner uptake, which is defined as the learner's responses following feedback. Twenty-three learners of Chinese as a foreign language at two different levels of proficiency at a…

This study examines the nature of the involvement load (Laufer & Hulstijn, 2001) in second language (L2) lexical input processing through reading by considering the effects of the reader-based factors of L2 reading proficiency and background knowledge. The lexical input processing aspects investigated were lexical inferencing (search), attentional…

For the majority of people in Ireland, Irish is a second language acquired primarily through the schooling system. This study examined the reading strategies children used in response to English and Irish words (presented in isolation), through an analysis of their oral reading errors. Children in their 4th year of schooling attending…

This paper draws on the Vygotskian methodological construct of microgenesis to study collaborative activity in an intermediate Spanish as a foreign language classroom. In this study, the construct of "microgenesis" is drawn upon to refer to both, the methodological "tool" to investigate language learning instances as observed in short periods of…

Two experiments tested language switching effects with bilingual participants in a priming paradigm with masked primes (duration of 50ms in Experiment 1 and 100ms in Experiment 2). Participants had to monitor target words for animal names, and ERPs were recorded to critical (non-animal) words in L1 and L2 primed by unrelated words from the same or…

Native-like pronunciation is necessary for membership into some social groups and to be considered a legitimate speaker of a language. Language immersion education aims to develop bilingual individuals, able to participate in multiple global communities, and while the lexical, syntactic, and sociolinguistic development of immersion learners is…

The present study investigates heritage learners' recognition of native-like and non-native-like mood selection in Spanish volitional constructions along two dimensions: age of onset of bilingualism in English (operationalized as age of arrival) and language use. Thirty-two heritage learners completed a grammaticality judgment (GJ) and an editing…